Saturday, August 22, 2009

Shoes that fit!

My feet have always been hard to fit. I have very clear memories of when I first moved to Canada. I was back to school shopping with my family we were looking for shoes for me. In Ireland I hasn’t had issues with shoes, likely due to European sizes being narrower, but after many shoe stores and some advice from a store owner, it was decided that custom shoes were the only way I was going to have shoes that fit.

I guess as I got older I just got used to having my feet float around in shoes. Dress shoes are not as bad, but running shoes have never fit me properly. Along with my feet being long and narrow, my heel is very narrow and my Achilles is straight up and down which has limited some shoe options. After trying many many different running shoe brands, I settled on Mizuno. I have been running in the Inspires for a few years now and have noticed the widening of the shoe through its last few model changes.

After trying on the current model in a local running store, I was not sure they were going to work. With the previous model the lace structure was almost touching across the top of the foot and the new model was even worse. I left without buying new shoes and wondering what I was going to do. A week or so later I was in another running/triathlon store and because I was really in need of shoes, I decided to give them another go. I put them on and knew it wasn’t going to work. It was then that the store employee mentioned that Mizuno had just added a AA width. I was a bit nervous that they would be too narrow as I haven’t had the width of my feet measured in years. He pulled out the measuring device and it turns out my right foot is actually AAAA – the same it was when I was younger.

They didn’t have the narrow model in stock but ordered them in for me and they arrived last week. When I tried them on I was so excited. I can’t even describe what its like to actually put on running shoes that fit when it has never happened before. So thank you to North Shore Athletics!

2 comments:

Doesn't fit make all the difference in the world? I'm a total fuss-budget about running shoes, and I like them narrow, too. Apparently, everyone else in the world has fat feet. I'm so glad you found a pair that works.